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NBA moves to a hard cap. Cap moves to be based on 55% of BRI, no max contracts, players can be cut from cap.
Contract signed is still 100% guaranteed, even though cut players wont count to the cap. To pay for that 5% of BRI get's put in a yearly 'legacy fund' and players cut that offseason see the remainder of their contract paid out of that, prorated based on what they sign for. The left over from the 'legacy fund' gets rolled into the cap for the next offseason.

EXAMPLE:
If this were in place for the 2018 offseason. A 55% BRI would mean a $115 mil hard cap per team. The extra 5% would mean $500 million (give or take) in the fund.

Cav's decide, "We're going to cut JR Smith, LeBron walked and Smith ain't helping us." $14,720,000 comes out of the Cav's cap. Smith is guaranteed $30,400,000 the next two years no matter what. Lets say he signs a 2 year $14mil contract. For 2018 Smith get's $7,000,000 from his new team, and $7,720,000 from the legacy fund.

We hit the 2019 offseason and there was $60mil left in the 'legecy fund'. That means for the 2019 offseason, you take that and divide it evenly among the 30 teams, increasing the cap by $2mil over the 55% of BRI for the 2019 season. If the total offset salary of players cut go beyond the 5% of BRI set aside, then the owners must dip into their own pockets for offsetting contracts (divided among teams based on the percent of the fund used to cover for their players).

So now you got an all around win-win IMO. Players never give up guaranteed money, as the funds will always be set aside. Owners/GMs get flexibility in the hard cap of being able to move on from a player that under performs. The true superstars can really get theirs. Role players continually have a way to make money.

My estimation in this is the Superstars will rarely move. What you would see is the 2nd level players continuously move an take 2-3 year deals. For a guy like say, Marcus Smart, he could end up playing on 4 teams over 8 years, but that could be 8 years of $12mil AAV contracts, making him almost $100mil. Right now he might not make that over that time. It give players like that a larger pool to move to, as top teams would likely have continual money to use to change up their teams.

NBA moves to a hard cap. Cap moves to be based on 55% of BRI, no max contracts, players can be cut from cap.
Contract signed is still 100% guaranteed, even though cut players wont count to the cap. To pay for that 5% of BRI get's put in a yearly 'legacy fund' and players cut that offseason see the remainder of their contract paid out of that, prorated based on what they sign for. The left over from the 'legacy fund' gets rolled into the cap for the next offseason.

EXAMPLE:
If this were in place for the 2018 offseason. A 55% BRI would mean a $115 mil hard cap per team. The extra 5% would mean $500 million (give or take) in the fund.

Cav's decide, "We're going to cut JR Smith, LeBron walked and Smith ain't helping us." $14,720,000 comes out of the Cav's cap. Smith is guaranteed $30,400,000 the next two years no matter what. Lets say he signs a 2 year $14mil contract. For 2018 Smith get's $7,000,000 from his new team, and $7,720,000 from the legacy fund.

We hit the 2019 offseason and there was $60mil left in the 'legecy fund'. That means for the 2019 offseason, you take that and divide it evenly among the 30 teams, increasing the cap by $2mil over the 55% of BRI for the 2019 season. If the total offset salary of players cut go beyond the 5% of BRI set aside, then the owners must dip into their own pockets for offsetting contracts (divided among teams based on the percent of the fund used to cover for their players).

So now you got an all around win-win IMO. Players never give up guaranteed money, as the funds will always be set aside. Owners/GMs get flexibility in the hard cap of being able to move on from a player that under performs. The true superstars can really get theirs. Role players continually have a way to make money.

My estimation in this is the Superstars will rarely move. What you would see is the 2nd level players continuously move an take 2-3 year deals. For a guy like say, Marcus Smart, he could end up playing on 4 teams over 8 years, but that could be 8 years of $12mil AAV contracts, making him almost $100mil. Right now he might not make that over that time. It give players like that a larger pool to move to, as top teams would likely have continual money to use to change up their teams.

Teams are already claiming they are losing money and they would lose even more money.

If I understand what you said then teams that make bad contract deals wouldn't be "punished" for their mistake but the league as a whole would pay it for them. That doesn't seem equitable for the teams that didn't and don't make those bad mistakes. It seems it would encourage teams to take a lot more risk on players with questionable health (Chandler Parsons would be thrilled to sign another huge contract, and if he's not healthy, cut him and the league will pay it out).

What incentive does a team have to offer JR Smith more than the vet minimum?

What incentive does JR have to choose the team that offers the most money when it makes no difference to his bottom line? This is why I suggested the guarantee should only be for a percentage of the total deal ... if JR signs for 2 years for $14M he gets say 75% of the difference from his old team (off the cap) rather than 100% so it's worth 25 cents on the dollar for him to take the bigger deal from another team. Maybe 75% is not enough incentive and it should be 50%, but 100% is a problem. Or maybe the guarantee should be extended to be 100% but over 15 or 20 years (which could have the added benefit of helping protect players financially from themselves).

Team salaries are absolutely not irrelevant. You donít think teams look at the two teams in the finals paying massive tax bills and wonder if they can afford to compete? OKC was a poster child. They said they couldnít afford to keep harden and Ibaka, so they had to trade one. But realistically, they could have kept everyone, but would have had to pay huge tax bills. You donít think owners wouldnít love a cap that would prevent that from even being an option. Same with Cleveland right now. They basically are at the mercy of Lebron every year, and every year he can basically force their bill slightly higher. You donít think Gilbert wouldnít love a cap that says he canít spend more.

I get what youíre saying. Owners would be reluctant to bump the cap floor in case things go horribly wrong. But realistically, if every team drops to the minimum expenditure, thereís a ton of problems in the league and the league is probably on the brink of failing. I donít see that being an issue in the next 5-10 years, which is what a renegotiated CBA would cover. And even if they have to give up a percentage of earnings to get this done, thereís no way it would be more than a percent or two. No chance the players get anywhere close to 60%.

I guess we just disagree on this one. I think you can sell the owners in giving up a percent or two in order to take away the ability to spend crazy amounts of money for championship teams and giving them non guaranteed deals, to make roster turnover easier.

The players sacrifice guaranteed deals for a percent or two higher total earnings. And you can consider removing max deals, but Iím actually not sure if the players are pro or con max deals as a whole.

Say the player's cut of BRI is $4 billion next year. Every single team decides to only spend the minimum, at $90 million. The players still get $4 billion. Now say all the teams go into the luxury tax with $130 million salaries. The players still get $4 billion. They are guaranteed that money by the CBA. The actual payrolls do not affect how much salary goes to players. I'm not sure how much simpler I can explain it. You are not getting players to give up GUARANTEED money for a couple of percentage points. You'd have to be delusional to think that.

What makes you think players will give up guaranteed contracts? They wonít.

And thatís not the league covering for cut players. Itís players paying for cut player by not using full BRI for current salaries.

Itís like my first job, my parents took 25% of my paycheck each week and put it in a college fund to pay for supplies. The ďlegacy fundsĒ or ďtrust fundĒ for players is the exact same thing. Players ensuring theyíll get paid.

What makes you think players will give up guaranteed contracts? They wonít.

And thatís not the league covering for cut players. Itís players paying for cut player by not using full BRI for current salaries.

Itís like my first job, my parents took 25% of my paycheck each week and put it in a college fund to pay for supplies. The ďlegacy fundsĒ or ďtrust fundĒ for players is the exact same thing. Players ensuring theyíll get paid.

I don't think players will be asked to give up guaranteed contract ... if they were asked with the right incentives they probably would ... but I don't think it's going to happen.

The money in the reserve pool comes from the teams in the form of withheld pay, using that money to pay cut players implies that the money to cut players will come from the reserve which is filled by all teams ... it should come from the team that screwed up in signing the deal in the first place.

If your parents took the 25% from you then your brother got fired because he sucked at his and they gave it to him would you think that was fair? Or are you saying the individual cut player would only get paid the amount they put in to the pool?

I doubt teams are losing money too, but they claimed they were to get the BRI to where it is now ... they will complain at people moving it up.

As far as losing money is concerned, prior to the new tv deal yes some teams probably operated at a loss. Team valuations only continued to go up, however. Amazon operates at a loss every single year, and yet it is one of the most valuable companies in retail. With the new tv deal, I suspect every team is in the black now.

Say the player's cut of BRI is $4 billion next year. Every single team decides to only spend the minimum, at $90 million. The players still get $4 billion. Now say all the teams go into the luxury tax with $130 million salaries. The players still get $4 billion. They are guaranteed that money by the CBA. The actual payrolls do not affect how much salary goes to players. I'm not sure how much simpler I can explain it. You are not getting players to give up GUARANTEED money for a couple of percentage points. You'd have to be delusional to think that.

But thats not what Iím saying. By allowing teams to spend into the luxury tax, youíre basically allowing them, in a way, to buy a championship. The two teams in the finals were in the tax. In order to compete with GS, itís likely Houston gets deep into the tax in the near future. If Boston wants to keep their team together, they will probably go pretty deep in the tax. If philly can land a stud this offseason, theyíll end up into the tax when their young guys expire. The league is setting up to the point where you almost have to spend deep into the tax to be a championship contender. Eliminate that, and thatís a plus for owners.

And the guaranteed contracts bit is entirely seperate though anyways. Non or partially guaranteed deals donít actually benefit the owners. It benefits the league, as it allows for more player movement since teams can free up cap space. More player movement should mean more parity, especially if teams arenít stuck in purgatory with bad deals. And non or partially guaranteed deals can benefit the players. Thatís the whole point Iím making generally.

The owners benefit from a hard cap because they canít be forced to decide between paying insane tax bills and competing or not paying the tax and sucking. A cap for players would result in a similar share of money overall, so it doesnít significantly impact them as a whole from a monetary standpoint. But if you inplement a hard cap, you now run into how teams can or canít be built. Thatís where the guaranteed deals come into play. This issue doesnít impact the owners bottom lines. It only affects how an owner can build his team. But from a players standpoint, this impacts them more than the actual implementation of the hard cap individually. Injured or underperforming players lose money with non or partially guaranteed deals. Healthy, consistent and productive players get rewarded since thereís now more money in free agency.

And by more money, I mean you know longer have the 8th guy on the team eating up $12 mill per year. So when guys hit free agency, the money pool is larger, since thatís money is again available. Take John Henson for the bucks. He makes $11 mill next year. If he were cut, heíd probably sign for no more than $5 mill, which dumps $6 mill back into the FA pool for the same number of players. So that with 20+ players around the league, and thereís some real cash opening up.

But thats not what Iím saying. By allowing teams to spend into the luxury tax, youíre basically allowing them, in a way, to buy a championship. The two teams in the finals were in the tax. In order to compete with GS, itís likely Houston gets deep into the tax in the near future. If Boston wants to keep their team together, they will probably go pretty deep in the tax. If philly can land a stud this offseason, theyíll end up into the tax when their young guys expire. The league is setting up to the point where you almost have to spend deep into the tax to be a championship contender. Eliminate that, and thatís a plus for owners.

And the guaranteed contracts bit is entirely seperate though anyways. Non or partially guaranteed deals donít actually benefit the owners. It benefits the league, as it allows for more player movement since teams can free up cap space. More player movement should mean more parity, especially if teams arenít stuck in purgatory with bad deals. And non or partially guaranteed deals can benefit the players. Thatís the whole point Iím making generally.

The owners benefit from a hard cap because they canít be forced to decide between paying insane tax bills and competing or not paying the tax and sucking. A cap for players would result in a similar share of money overall, so it doesnít significantly impact them as a whole from a monetary standpoint. But if you inplement a hard cap, you now run into how teams can or canít be built. Thatís where the guaranteed deals come into play. This issue doesnít impact the owners bottom lines. It only affects how an owner can build his team. But from a players standpoint, this impacts them more than the actual implementation of the hard cap individually. Injured or underperforming players lose money with non or partially guaranteed deals. Healthy, consistent and productive players get rewarded since thereís now more money in free agency.

And by more money, I mean you know longer have the 8th guy on the team eating up $12 mill per year. So when guys hit free agency, the money pool is larger, since thatís money is again available. Take John Henson for the bucks. He makes $11 mill next year. If he were cut, heíd probably sign for no more than $5 mill, which dumps $6 mill back into the FA pool for the same number of players. So that with 20+ players around the league, and thereís some real cash opening up.

Your first response to me in this line of thought was in regards to a post about guaranteed contracts. I went back and looked. You're now talking about a different subject which is why none of this makes any sense.

Hard cap would have to be considerably higher than it is now and would need a CBA change to implement it.

Hard cap would be a problem with guaranteed contracts so there needs to be some way to mitigate guaranteed contracts to keep probably a third of the NBA teams to be stuck in salary cap hell year after year.

I don't believe a hard cap will make a significant difference in which teams win the most since regardless of rules better owners tend to end up with front offices and coaches and talent and win more. And the reality of the situation is most likely that Silver mentioned it just to make the complainers happy for a bit.

Hard cap would have to be considerably higher than it is now and would need a CBA change to implement it.

Hard cap would be a problem with guaranteed contracts so there needs to be some way to mitigate guaranteed contracts to keep probably a third of the NBA teams to be stuck in salary cap hell year after year.

I don't believe a hard cap will make a significant difference in which teams win the most since regardless of rules better owners tend to end up with front offices and coaches and talent and win more. And the reality of the situation is most likely that Silver mentioned it just to make the complainers happy for a bit.

I do tend to agree with the last part. Not because good owners, but partially just because itís such a star driven league. I wouldnít call dan Gilbert a great owner, but he has a ring because he lucked into Lebron, who also happened to grow up basically right down the road from Cleveland in the grand scheme of things.

Golden state drafted incredibly well, but they still landed a good stroke of luck by happening to have their success coincide with an incredibly rare massive cap jump and coincide with a top player also being a free agent. They still would have been really good and could still have a few rings, but theyíre a different team without Durant obvisously.

The nba is still going to come down to the top few players at the end of the day more than any team sport. Good management can help get you there, but thereís plenty of times where a little luck helps in getting one of those top few players. But I do think a hard cap would help. It at least makes it a little more difficult to assemble a super team.

I do tend to agree with the last part. Not because good owners, but partially just because itís such a star driven league. I wouldnít call dan Gilbert a great owner, but he has a ring because he lucked into Lebron, who also happened to grow up basically right down the road from Cleveland in the grand scheme of things.

Golden state drafted incredibly well, but they still landed a good stroke of luck by happening to have their success coincide with an incredibly rare massive cap jump and coincide with a top player also being a free agent. They still would have been really good and could still have a few rings, but theyíre a different team without Durant obvisously.

The nba is still going to come down to the top few players at the end of the day more than any team sport. Good management can help get you there, but thereís plenty of times where a little luck helps in getting one of those top few players. But I do think a hard cap would help. It at least makes it a little more difficult to assemble a super team.

My point was that independent of freak luck, in general better owners tend to have a better record. Some teams are going to take better advantage of the rules, and some, like the Kings, will somehow screw up year after year after year.